User blog:Srijit16thmay/Mahabharata: My Views
As an Indian I feel prowd to be the part of a culture that produced the Mahabharata. I've went through quite few translations of various sizes. And is presently looking forward to go through the main text as soon as I have some time in my hand. I still remember I first read a very childish translation when I was like 6 -7 years old. The story was incomplete, but I fell in love with the story. As I grew I learnt more and more, went through larger and more complete versions, and the love turned in a kind of obsession. I am strictly a guy who loves speed as far as a book or a car is concerned, so the first thing that came to my mind when I thought how could it be made to look like a better read (I mean really, How many people really read the entire stuff just for the sake of reading the story) was that it needed to shed some excess fat that slows it down. Just a simple example, When Duhshashan tries to unclothe Draupadi in the middle of the royal court of Hastina pur, there are long speeches of draupadi adressing everybody in general, Bhisma, Drona etc. if this really happened and daupadi really tried to go through even half of the speech, Duhshashan could get the entire court naked by the time she finished. And the other thing that I always felt was that in many cases the reaction of a character to a certain event is in apropiate in terms of time and surroundings ( People like Arjun would not get senseless thrice hearing about his son's death ). The way I pictured Mahabharata in my mind is you could say a very dark version (some of my friends say brutally violent version) of Mahabharata for some obvious reasons, like I never took Krishna as an Avatar. He's a womanizer (like Arjun) and a pol itician, a very cunning politician in fact. but not a God. Hence, his trickeries are only trickeries irrespsctive of the divine magical way they were performed ( e.g. hiding the sun behind his chakra) Duryadhan is just a loud spoilt brat willing to go even to war to avenge the childhood torture they received from Bhim. Arjun is a heartless playboy worried only about glory and beautiful women to sleep with, ( Didn't say a word when Draupadi was disgraced in front of the royal court. throughout the story Karna seemed to be a more important issue to him than the woman who loved him(Draupadi)) he married Draupadi to show Karna that he could marry her ( like he's pointing out, you too could've hit the target but you still don't get the girl, you lack the family aristocracy ) and then all his brothers married her, and he didn't say a word. I mean it's a basic instinct of all creatures that they feel a certain possesiveness towards the person they love, He never felt it for anybody we know of. not Subhadra, Chitrangada, Draupadi,...none. Karna, in spite of all his qualities, remained a short tempered, nearsighted, show off. Not really deserving to be placed with the other epic tragic heroes like Meghnad or Hector. Category:Blog posts